In today’s environment, companies in Twin Falls, Idaho rely on reliable access to The net as the lifeblood of their business. The business functions of all companies, from Fortune 500 to small businesses, rely on fast and reliable Internet access.
We’ll become increasingly reliant on Internet access as the months and years progress.
Our uses of the net reach far and wide. From data sharing, video calls, and shopping to VOIP and email, the internet has a broad presence. What is the best fix to meet your needs? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Maybe you need Metro Ethernet. You may need Gigabit Internet. A 5 Meg Internet circuit, 10 Meg access to The Internet, a 50 Meg circuit, or a 100 Meg access to The net point: what is right for your organization in Twin Falls, Idaho?
Prior to selecting a service, your business must figure out its needs. Is Internet use limited to website surfing or emailing only? Will Internet usage mainly involve cloud servers and real time data connection? Are you hosting the data in Twin Falls and distant places or offices rely on you?
How would an outage to your high-speed Internet affect your company? Can your organization afford the downtime? Is uptime required? You must answer questions like these so you can make a purchase that actually meets your needs
In the broadest of terms, companies need high-speed access to The Internet. Choosing the correct broadband internet for your business requires a cost benefit analysis. You will hear providers use terms like:
… do not lose sight of the real issues: what are the capabilities and technical solutions you need to best serve your company?
For most companies in Twin Falls, some or all of the employees need access to the net. It may be needed for organization research, to order office supplies or other reasons.
The number of employees you have may determine your best solution. If you only have a few workers, you may be fine with a smaller Internet circuit such as a 5 or 10 megabyte. If you have a larger workforce, you may want to consider more. This is especially true if they all need to use the internet simultaneously.
Your workforce may simply use an intranet system with limited video and graphics. If this is true, your need for high speed Internet be less than you thought. On the other hand, when they are frequently downloading documents, images and videos, that need for speed increases drastically.
Are you regularly performing backups? It is recommended that you do remote backups from every desk. If you are, you will need to support simultaneous connections out to the web to synchronize the backup data to collect.
Do you use a file-sharing service? Perhaps you use Google drive, DropBox or a different service? As people save files, those files are pushed to the cloud and then synchronized back to other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
High-speed company Internet access like Metro Ethernet and gigabit Internet may be viable options for you depending on your location. These are typically found in “lit buildings” in Twin Falls. Carriers have already wired these buildings. Adding this high-speed Internet to your office may be surprisingly affordable and easy.
While it may be the case that bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building can cause a big dent in your wallet, bringing the connection to a suite or offices within that building does not have to. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed access to The web in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Do you have your own business servers that run APIs, websites or feeds for offsite offices or companies? Is your main business office with a hosted application accessed by 40 or even 50 branch office sites? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you an attorney with offices multiple cities or states? Do you have one office hosting data for several locations?
Access to data and programs by people outside of your main location becomes necessary when you host information centrally. For those people, no Internet connection means no work gets done. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied sites?
The needs of an office with one employee web surfing may not need more than a cable modem or an inexpensive 5-10 megabyte circuit. High-speed access to The net is advisable for the headquarters. Gigabit Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or some other high-speed dedicated circuit is recommended. While fast Internet access is and important, they must also have the capability to handle assorted simultaneous connections. Do you think a cable modem is sufficient? It is probably not.
There is a price that comes along with choosing a cable modem or other lower cost circuit. You may save money on your monthly bill but the bandwidth you get must be shared among many people. While you may subscribe to a cable modem with a 30 Meg connection, you may be unable to reach those speeds during peak hours. Cable companies are known to limit or predetermine the amount of bandwidth available for delivery in any particular community. Different buildings and tenants housed or working within those buildings all share that set amount of bandwidth. You might be capped at 30-megabyte speed, but may never be able to actually reach that speed during the important hours of your organization day. If you expect 30 but only get 6, will you have problems?
Guaranteed bandwidth and dedicated bandwidth are solutions that some providers offer. If you want your very own bandwidth that is not used by anyone else, you should consider this. The presence of numerous buildings and tenants should have no effect on your speed. You should receive full capacity of your circuits no matter what the time of day.
As an example, look at Metro Ethernet. They provide guaranteed bandwidth in various increments. You can receive guaranteed bandwidth in increments of 100, 50, 10 and 5 megabytes. Gigabit Internet providers offer gigabit speeds from your office to the net.
In these scenarios, carriers deliver a large quantity of high-speed to a building. The quantity must be enough so that it can split the circuit and deliver to every tenant. Whatever amount has been guaranteed in each tenant’s contract is the amount they receive.
Twin Falls, Idaho has some carriers that offer exceptional Internet bandwidth products and services. However, circuits can still go down and cause disruption. Ask this question: “what can I do to decrease the likelihood of an outage?
Consider redundant circuits.
There are two types of redundancy to consider.
With the first type of redundancy, you receive multiple circuits from the same carrier. If there is a problem with a line or a port in your router, circuit redundancy can offer some protection. Damage to an external wire or part can cause the failure of all of your circuits. A regional outage experienced by your carrier can have the same result. You get some protection, but also some risk.
You can also achieve redundancy by utilizing different providers to bring in and establish your circuits. If you think it is beneficial, you can bind the connections together in a manner that makes your circuits act and look like a single source. You know the truth: that they are individual circuits and are there to back each other up in case one goes down. Diversity redundancy offers far greater protection. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
When considering redundant circuits and carriers, try to be sure that the carriers you look at in Twin Falls have different physical geographic routes or pathways. Doing so will maximize redundancy. Your goal should be to get circuits coming into your building on different sides. You do not want them on the same side. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. What if there is some kind of catastrophic incident such as a fire or accident that impacts circuits within a region? Now, you have redundancy in an alternative physical direction.
The cost of dependable Internet access pales in comparison to the cost of unreliable access. Please consider these situations:
Are you on a cable modem and your carrier is providing circuits to dozens of other office suites in your building? It is possible that during normal company hours, those tenants might be downloading large files or watching continuous videos. They might be getting a lot of phone calls. As available bandwidth shrinks, what will happen to your calls? What happens to the strength and quality of that call? Will calls be arbitrarily dropped? Will the calls be choppy?
Your office may be the working center of an entire business enterprise. The kind of company does not necessarily matter. You may be a law firm doing file sharing, an accounting practice sharing databases or a retailer operating a distributed point-of-sale system. All of your locations, whether 2 or 2000, depend on your primary Internet connection to access and retrieve data. What happens in the event of a circuit failure? Would it annoy you or destroy you? How much work, if any, can be done by your remote sites? What happens to new orders? Can they be taken or processed? Share essential information with anyone? Before choosing a solution, be sure to assess and really understand what your organization requires. What if you are a software company? Perhaps you are running a hosted solution and it must be used by multiple customers; maybe even hundreds. Maybe you operate a service that allows other systems to talk to yours via API. This may be to collect miscellaneous data, calculate prices or shipping prices or other information. What if these other systems have difficulty connecting your servers? Customers will only take so many repeated outages. How long with they remain with your company?
Maybe your organization depends entirely on the net. Your employees or representatives will not be able to make outgoing phone calls if your circuits go down. No calls could be answered either. You are now, essentially, out of company. Is redundancy enough? Can you truly rely on your carriers? Are they as dependable as they claim? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You clearly have many options. Your decision will be based on different factors including your company needs and your budget. As a wrap-up:
If you are a small business, with one location and you do not worry about redundancy, one five meg, ten meg, or fifty meg access to The web circuit may very well be enough to meet your needs. You may find that if your building is “lit”, gigabit service and Metro Ethernet service may be reasonably cost-effective choices for you. Costs vary with location and the availability of circuits so speak with our engineers. Together, we can find the best option for you and your organization.
If you have a midsized organization in Twin Falls, Idaho, you will need higher-speed access to The web. Your choices include: Metro Ethernet, gigabit Internet or other high-speed circuits. In a perfect world, you will achieve maximum redundancy by utilizing multiple carriers to provide and service different circuits. Achieving this may cost extra but it won’t double your costs. Two 50-megabyte circuits may be more cost effective than a single 100 circuit. Availability and costs vary. Learn your options by speaking with one of our knowledgeable experts. We can help you determine what is available in your specific location.
If your business has several sites or offices, you are at great risk for failure. They need redundant circuits. It is helpful if they use multiple providers. Also, redundant equipment such as switches and routers in your facility can minimize the risk of downtime. Have you looked at Metro Ethernet providers, gigabit Internet providers and other high-speed Internet access circuit providers? You should do so before making a decision. The right mix of carriers and services will help keep your organization up and running as efficiently as possible.
Gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits must be utilized by companies in any of these categories. You must have redundant circuits for multiple providers as well as redundant hardware in your office to ensure your uptime. You need enough bandwidth. The bandwidth must be sufficient to handle spikes in usage with no slowdowns or interruptions. It is crucial that not only your circuits have the ability to support a vast number of multiple and simultaneous connects, but your hardware must have the ability to support them as well.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. Your demand and budget constraints should both be considered when you decide what circuit or combination of circuits you must have. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers will analyze your needs and requirements and develop a free action plan for you. We are going to examine your current usage and demand levels then create a design that provides you with the resources you need to keep your organization running smoothly at a reasonable cost.
Please complete the contact form by clicking here. You may also call our office to set up an appointment for your assessment. We do assessments quickly. It can take as little as 48 hours to complete your analysis.